Ambao, Que-Ke, Lim Piao, Yu His, Pe Phan and Pe Khen. El Nido town became an independent Municipality in 1916. The first town census of 1918 showed El Nido having a population of 1,789. The population grew very gradually, with around 2,000 people living here until the period between 1980-1990, when the population doubled in size from 11,657 to 18,832. Today almost 27,000 people call El Nido their home. Fifty percent of the total populations are native Palaweños while the rest are Visayans, Bicolanos, Tagalogs and Ilocanos who have migrated to El Nido in search of better opportunities.
The town of El Nido traces its roots to a small village called "Talindak" by its first inhabitants, the Tagbanua tribe. It was called Talindak up to 1882, when it became a barrio of Taytay. It was renamed Bacuit by the Spanish in 1890, which it remained until 1954, when the town was finally given it’s present name of EI Nido aftern the edible nests of swift lets (collocalia fuciphaga) found in the crevices of its limestone cliffs. These nests, "Nido" in Spanish, are the main ingredient for the famed Nido soup.